


After Adamant

by Pyreite



Series: Conversations with Adaar [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Forgiveness, Friendship, Love, Relationship Discussions, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:43:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4016737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyreite/pseuds/Pyreite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adaar is feeling guilty after the mission that took her and the Iron Bull into the bowels of Adamant Fortress and the Fade.</p><p>Set after 'Here Lies The Abyss'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Adamant

Adaar slid the whetstone across her blade. The familiar ring of steel on stone soothed her ragged nerves. She took comfort in this simple routine. Adamant Fortress, Clarel, the Fade, and the demonic Nightmare drifted to the back of her mind. The repetitive slide of her blade under the whetstone helped her to forget the horror, the fear, and the loss.

 

Hawke had been spared, but Stroud had died.

 

“Kadan!”

 

Adaar heard the Iron Bull's voice before she saw him. The lofty ceiling of her quarters, set high above Skyhold, carried his call up the stone steps. Adaar ignored him. She wasn't in the mood for company. The gauntlet of Adamant Fortress and the Fade had left her terribly unsettled.

 

Adaar just wanted to be alone.

 

“Kadan!”

 

Adaar cursed when the whetstone struck a discordant note. Bull's call had proved distracting enough to tarnish her blade. The sword in her lap gleamed silver-white with a fresh ding along the cutting edge. Adaar was irritated by her clumsiness. It would take longer to grind out the imperfection.

 

“Kadan”, said the Iron Bull.

 

Adaar sighed when she was engulfed in shadow. Only Bull could match her in height. He was a head taller, broader in the shoulder, and deeper in the chest too. A typical grey-skinned Qunari giant. Adaar wondered if feigning ignorance would encourage him to disappear.

 

She was wrong.

 

“Kadan!”, scolded the Iron Bull.

 

Adaar tensed like a drawn bowstring when two powerful hands closed around her wrists. The whetstone stilled. The blade of her favourite sword ceased to be sharpened. Bull held her hands captive inside his own calloused fists. Adaar knew better than to fight him.

 

The blade across her knees, honed to razor-sharpness, would slice them both to ribbons.

 

Adaar yielded when Bull peered into her face. The concern in his lone gleaming eye doubled the guilt she carried like a yoke around her neck. She had avoided him for two days. The knowledge that she had led him through a Rift into a place _full_ of untold horrors gave her little comfort. Bull feared the denizens of the Fade.

 

Madness, after all, often followed swiftly on the heels of demons.

 

“Kadan”, implored the Iron Bull. “Look at me”.

 

Adaar stubbornly shook her head. She averted her gaze when Bull tried to catch her eye. She was uninterested in readdressing the issue of contention between them. Words were an inadequate medium to express her shame. She had dragged Bull through the Fade.

 

Adaar believed her actions were unforgivable.

 

“Kadan”, persisted Bull. “ _Please_ ”.

 

Adaar trembled. Bull always commanded attention. He did not beg for it like a small child. The plaintive pleading whine in his voice perturbed Adaar greatly. She eased her grip on the whetstone and sword when Bull claimed them.

 

She did not resist when both were carefully removed from her person.

 

Adaar watched ruefully when her lover set them aside. Bull disturbed nothing atop her desk when the sword was sheathed in its scabbard. Not a single piece of paper fluttered when the whetstone was returned to the pouch Adaar carried tied to her belt. Bull was just as careful and considerate with her personal effects as he was of her. To respect the person, he believed, one had to respect what they owned too.

 

“My Kadan”, chided the Iron Bull. “Hiding away inside your stone tower”.

 

Adaar was humbled when Bull turned his great horned head. She hadn't the courage to look him in the eye. She would have preferred solitude, but Bull made that impossible when he recaptured her hands. Adaar was quiet as he rubbed soothing circles over her knuckles. He was trying to meet her halfway, to establish a rapport, so they could talk again as equals.

 

“You had to know that I would come looking for you”.

 

Adaar's curt nod sent strands of red dribbling down her cheeks like blood. She frowned at her own forgetfulness when the silky mass tumbled over her shoulders too. Adaar realised, too late, that she hadn't braided her own hair. The oversight, though small, showed how shaken she was.

 

Adaar never forgot a chore or task.

 

Thoughts of Adamant had made her neglectful.

 

Adaar sighed when the Iron Bull twined a strand of her hair around his finger. She was unsurprised when he tugged ever so gently. The message was clear. Bull's penchant for red hair would always win over Adaar's pragmatism. She would never be allowed more than a quick trim to tidy the edges for as long as he loved her.

 

“You were not at fault my beautiful, Kadan”, declared the Iron Bull. “No one could have foreseen the evils of Adamant Fortress”.

 

Adaar was baffled by Bull's acceptance of her ignorance. She was not to blame for the lives lost inside those walls, but she was responsible for what had come after. She had expected recrimination not forgiveness. Bull was terrified of going mad. The Fade was the very heart of madness.

 

Adaar had led him inside its winding paths.

 

“You can't mean that!” blurted Adaar.

 

Bull idly twined that lock of red hair around his thumb. “Have I ever lied to you?” he challenged, voice husky, but with a tinge of reprimand. Adaar had relinquished command to him inside the walls of her quarters. Bull knew better than to think that he had her completely under his thumb. Adaar was as skittish as her favourite Dracolisk mount.

 

She required gentle handling from time to time.

 

“No”, replied Adaar.

 

Bull eyed her solemnly. “Then why can you not believe that I do not blame you for what happened?”

 

“Because you should”, insisted Adaar. “I opened a Rift, Bull! I made us fall into the Fade!”

 

The Iron Bull smirked. He leaned inward, back arching, and shoulders rolling. He heard the hitch in Adaar's breath when his brow came to rest against her own. “You saved me”, he told her. “Saved us, Kadan”. Bull covered her mouth with his own, swallowing Adaar's protests, before she could voice them.

 

He took his time to convey every nuance of gratitude, tenderness, and love. Adaar had saved his life, something few outside of the Chargers had ever done. Bull was grateful to still be breathing and sane despite treading through the madness of the Fade. He came up for air several minutes later, a grin on his lips, when Adaar blushed. The telling violet tinge in her cheeks revealed how flustered she was.

 

“Well”, said Adaar. “I suppose that means you forgive me”.

 

The Iron Bull slid a calloused hand down her arm. His clawed fingers scored a fine line in the supple leather of her surcoat. “I may need a little more convincing”, he stated vaguely. “You have kept me out of your bed for two days and nights. I was miserable while bunking down in the cold Inquisition barracks with Krem”. Bull chuckled when Adaar caught him telling an untruth.

 

“Liar”, she accused. “You sleep by yourself, inside the room above the tavern, if you're not here with me”.

 

“You still left me to sleep alone”, Bull reminded her. “For two long and lonely nights”.

 

Adaar rolled her eyes. She wasn't going to win this argument. Bull was convinced that she was at fault for not seeking him out herself. Guilt could be a terrible burden upon the bravest of souls. Adaar hadn't had the courage to face him so soon after Adamant.

 

The remaining Grey Wardens were their allies, but the cost in recruiting them had been high.

 

“So”, said Adaar. “I suppose you locked my door on your way up here”.

 

“Of course I did”, confirmed Bull. “You need time to apologise to me properly”.

 

Adaar sighed when Bull slid a thumb under her surcoat. A hard tug on the band of her breeches told her exactly what form he wanted his apology to take. She obliged him with an exasperated smile, popping clasps, and untying laces as he helped undress her one layer at a time. The surcoat came off, followed by her breeches, boots, and hose. Adaar was down to her small-clothes when Bull pressed her into the blankets of their bed.

 

“Now this”, he praised. “Is the start of a good apology”.

 

Adaar laughed when Bull deftly unclipped the clasps of her breast-band. He'd certainly had plenty of practice disrobing her since the inception of their relationship. Adaar was unsurprised when Bull tugged on the waistband of her briefs too. He wanted the dragon's share of her attention. She obediently lifted her hips so he could slide the silk-trimmed-in-lace down her thighs.

 

“I'm guessing that you missed the sex more than you missed me”, teased Adaar.

 

Bull grinned unrepentantly. “I did miss the sex, and my favourite bed-warmer too”. He waggled an eyebrow suggestively. “Now that I have you gloriously naked, Kadan, I think it's time we made a start on that apology”. Bull chuckled when Adaar opened her arms.

 

The smile on her face was worth more to him than a thousand gold sovereigns.

 

Bull sighed when he was pulled down for a kiss. The nightmare of Adamant Fortress and the Fade were forgotten when Adaar's tongue slid into his mouth. This was an act of love and forgiveness as much for her as it was for himself. Bull was a warrior not a poet. He could rend Adaar's enemies limb from limb not write sonnets proclaiming her beauty.

 

Words were an inadequate medium to express the depth of his feelings.

 

Actions spoke more loudly, clearly, and so much more meaningfully.


End file.
